


tumblr prompts (fallen hero)

by saturnsage



Category: Fallen Hero Series - Malin Rydén
Genre: Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-11
Updated: 2019-05-03
Packaged: 2019-11-15 14:29:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 29
Words: 17,429
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18075167
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/saturnsage/pseuds/saturnsage
Summary: don't look at this i just need to make sure all my prompts are in one place. if you look i'll know





	1. steel writes an angry love letter that says "get out of my school"

**Author's Note:**

> I TOLD YOU NOT TO LOOK YOU JERK

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For prompts, Steel panicking about feels for a F!Sidestep is always delicious

Accidents happen, just not usually to him.   
  
He could ignore it; bury it under old rusted iron and static hurts, say ‘ _not now, not ever_ ’ and let it crumble away with all the rest of what he had, but this time, it wasn’t purposeful, it was an  _accident_.  
  
~~_Dear you,_~~  
  
_~~You~~ ,_  
  
_Sidestep,_  
  
He observes, and it threatens to override his system with all the new information he gains.   
  
_Your smile is nice. I didn’t think any part of you was nice, but I guess I was wrong._  
  
There’s the sprinting right in a race, where the adrenaline reaches its boiling point and your skin grows hot with it. There’s that Shcrodinger’s question of  _‘it could be, it couldn’t be, which do you think?’_ That Pavlovian response to a laugh that was an accident.   
__  
Don’t let it get to your head. Don’t let it get into mine.  
  
You’re different, and it’s rewiring all previous hard-drives. He wants to see if he can carry something softly with his prosthetics, and he wonders if you’re soft enough to try. Different, frayed and bent, but you’re not  _broken_.  
  
_I’d say it’s your fault, but you’re never to blame for anything._  
  
Double-tied and cracked and bleeding, but you’re not shattered, as much as you act like you are. You probably fell down from the sky and bounced right back up. It’s fascinating to see you build yourself from scratch with your own  bruised hands.  
  
_If you find out, do me a favor and don’t mention it._  
  
It was an accident, this. A butterfly flutters it’s wings, and on the other side of the world, a hurricane flattens a city.


	2. angie makes fun of steel having emotions like some sort of 14 yr old

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Argent finding out that Steel has a crush on both Ricardo and Sidestep (sorry this has been running around me head and every time it's just argent cackling at a very red Chen, can't wait for this in-game content)

Man of steel meets woman of steel, and she breaks his skin to tin-foil.   
  
She kicks up a leg and lands it on the table end, lounging like a lion picking at her prey’s bones with her teeth. A claw taps against her cheek, and it rings. Her grin is wide enough to show off the sharpness of her canines. Cat finds dog, cat scares dog to death.   
  
She bats her lashes innocently, and he knows she’s far from it. “Oh,” She says, saccharine sweet, “You mean that I wasn’t supposed to know?”  
  
He’s trapped in place, sitting uneven and stiff in his own kitchen bar stool, holding the coffee cup like it’s his last. He doesn’t look at her. Wouldn’t want to provoke something into aggression, right?   
  
“Angie,” He tries, voice low and pleading. He’s already lost. He’s scrambling for surrender points. “Please don’t do this.”    
  
Her howl is high and hyena-like, and it comes from the very belly of her. It’s more effective than the nuclear sirens to make goosebumps appear on his skin.   
  
“Do what? I’m not doing anything, Chen.” She answers, riding off the laughs, aftershocks coming in to and fro. “I’m just…enjoying this small point of weakness you’ve graciously showed me.”   
  
He drops his head on the table, groaning. If his face wasn’t red before, now’s the time to really make it pop.  “Shut up,” He says. “It’s not a big deal.”   
  
“You have a  _crush,”_ She answers, absolutely evil, “on not one, but two people? And one of them thinks you hate their guts? I’d say thats a big deal.”   
  
“You’re making it sound like i’m a twelve year old.”   
  
“Maybe because you’re acting like one. It’s hilarious.”   
  
“Shut up.”


	3. angie voice: you not only stole hearts and money, but my FOOD TOO??

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> f!Sidestep caught red-handed by Angie! Lady Argent finally discovering the culprit to her constantly missing treats in the Ranger's HQ fridge. Could be pre-reveal, or post-reveal (with Sidestep under Rangers' custody after cutting a deal with them?)

Ask her what color her skin is, and she won’t be able to tell you. Her hand is rapidly getting colder, and lead sinks into her stomach.   
  
Angie-no, Argent, leans against the doorframe, arms crossed, smile brimming with conspiracy. The lights of the kitchen feel garish now that they’ve suddenly been turned on without warning.   
  
“Uh,” Is all she can manage. Her hand refuses to move or to let go of her prize, and the fridge begins to beep.   
  
The ‘ _uh_ ’ serves nothing but to make Argent raise an eyebrow, unimpressed. “You’re not as graceful with your words without the getup, huh.” The Ranger says.  
  
 That stings. She’s always known that if she were to get caught she’d find herself in a shit-ton of consequences, but the little comments such as these, hurt more than she’d like.  
  
However, right now, she’s more concerned on  _how_  she got caught. She was so thorough!   
  
“How did you…” She starts, and Argent cuts her off with a snort.   
  
The Ranger waves her hand around in a vague gesture,  sounding bored despite the gleam of her expression. “How did I find out that it was you stealing my food? Easy. Daniel’s too much of a wimp to be a good liar, Ortega wouldn’t even hide the stealing, and if you can imagine Chen eating anything other than those disgusting fruit protein powders, you have a better imagination than I thought.”   
  


Argent…isn’t  _wrong_. But it’s still annoying to have her heart stop mid-beat when someone barges into the kitchen in the middle of the damn night like that.   
  
She frowns, and snatches the snack away from the cold, slams the fridge door with more force than necessary, and stalks up, face probably looking as sour as she feels.   
  
Argent still isn’t impressed; merely amused.   
  
“I’m still eating this,” She says, stubborn.   
  
Argent shrugs, moving away from the doorframe in a liquid gesture. “Once a criminal, always a criminal.” She says. The mirth doesn’t go away after that.   
  
She doesn’t think Argent even cares about the food disappearances. 


	4. *sad waluigi noises* ortega i love you

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mc finally tells Ortega about ‘the farm’ and what happened after they ‘died’

 

So it seems our end is always self-made.

______

__  
“If I told you of a snake that grew so hungry it ate the entire world, would you believe it?”  
  
“I have no reason not to.”  
  
“And if I told you that after it ate everything in existence, it ate itself? Would you believe that?”   
  
“I have no reason not to.”   
  
”I see. That’s all.”   
____

In the end, in the very edged and losing end, it closes the very same way it had begun. It starts with you in your frost-bitten grave, with you swallowing the ground that claimed you dead, with you digging into the sky so harsh-living that your hands crumble to dust.

A snake eats a planet and eats the world, and is not satisfied to the point it feasts on itself. You have no reason not to believe it.   
  
A snake twirls around a woman’s shoulder and whispers promises of knowledge, and in the end, all the woman learned was that she was naked. You have no reason not to believe it.   
  
In the end, you feed in on yourself and call it rebirth, call it retribution, call it creation.  
  
In the end, you are not alone, though you have eaten everything in your way to try to be so, and he sits not farther than arm’s reach, eyes as unreadable as the first day.   
  
He is changed. He is older, and he is more known. He is surer still, and he is silent.   
  
You are silent as well, clutching your wrists with your fingernails and digging in. If your skin gave way, would you bleed? Would you bleed? Do you bleed?  
  
You are changed. You are older, and you are more lost. You are fool still, and you talk.   
  
“There are three ways to test a re-gene’s chances at delusion,” You ~~end~~ start. “Unpredictability,”   
  
He is changed, and so are you.   
  
“Obedience to orders deemed unethical,”   
  
He reaches out to touch your face, firm-mouthed, shoulders stiff. It takes everything within you not to flinch.   
  
Would you bleed? Do you bleed? Do you want to find out?   
  
“Hey,” Ortega says, gently. He doesn’t look at the orange markings of your skin. He doesn’t look at the bandages tinting to deep red on your abdomen. All he looks at are you, and the stray hand that brushes against your ear fervor.  
  
You swallow, and do not dare yourself to lean in. “And, uh. your ability to feel pain.”   
  
The hand doesn’t edge away. His jaw locks, and his eyes flash with something as unknown as the first cave of the sea, and his other hand reaches to your other cheek.  
  
His gaze on you is not unkind. It is not pitying, either, because this end for you isn’t self-made as the others. He has always believed you out-burn hell itself, and he thinks of you strong.   
  
Do not dare yourself to lean in, and you close your eyes to avoid looking at his shining not unkind eyes.   
  
“They think that my telepathy has a hand in it,” You say, because you need to give an explanation for you are about to describe. “The, uh. The mind-reading made me delusional.”   
  
Since your eyes are closed, you don’t see him leaning forward and pressing his forehead against yours, and you don’t open them even when he says “God, I’m sorry.”  
  
You have only ever heard him apologize to you. The fingernails dig in, and this time you say to yourself I want to bleed I want to bleed, I will make it bleed.  
  
“You don’t have to keep doing this,” He says, whispered and sorrow-loved. Every word brushes against your nose. “We can help, if you’ll let us. If you’ll let me.”   
  
You called it rebirth, retribution, revenge. All it ever was is a tarp covering a body. Even as you stay in place and allow yourself to lean into both his hands cradling your head and his gentle not-unkindess, you know it was nothing but a tarp covering a body that will not last long.   
  
You lean away. His hands linger, and his last puff of breath shakes, but he lets you go. You open you eyes, and you realize he has never closed his, not once.   
  
Do you even bleed?   
  
“I do,” You say. “I started this.”   
  
He laughs, and it’s not so much as bitter as it is defeated, wondering. He looks down to your wounds, and brushes a finger against the rim of the bandage.  The orange lines look garish next to the pinkish-red of the gauze. “Right. You never stop when you start.”   
  
It’s more a reasoning for himself than it is for you.   
  
Ortega sighs. “Then if you won’t stop yourself, I won’t stop you, either.” He offers. “I’ll just be here. And if you want it, I’ll re-wrap your bandages.”   
  
The bed of your apartment creaks against both of your weights, and you think.   
  
In every story you have no reason not to believe in, there is an animal and there is a person, and the person falls into the animal’s trap.   
  
You hope that that is not what this is.   
  
You will make sure that that is not what this is.   
  
For the first time today, you smile, and it hurts. “Ok,” You crack out, sorrow-loving and lukewarm, “Ok.” 


	5. herald boy uses his notes app on his phone like a diary

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> prompt??: heraldstep kisses. im beggin u

**11:45 AM,**  
 **new entry in Things They Do:**  
  
I trained with them again today. I don’t believe a word they said about being out of shape. I’ve never fought anyone like them, but then again, I don’t fight much. Angie says it’s because i’m too weak, but I don’t really like to fight.   
  
I think they can tell i’m not much of a fighter. When I told them that I prefer staying with people who’re hurt rather than beating people up, they smiled a bit. It was a really nice smile. I hope I can make them do it again.   
  
They didn’t stiffen this time when I carried them up. I think this thing we’re doing is helping them. I don’t know how I know, but they look like they need a healthy outlet. Maybe start talking more while training? I could high-five them afterwards? Ortega hugs them sometimes, maybe I can ask to as well???   
  
What if they stopped hero work because they’re tired of hurting people too? Then that could be something we could talk about! Helping people in the sidelines and letting the others do the fighting!  
  
 **4:16 PM,**  
 **new entry in Things They Do:  
**  
Oh god they’re so pretty when they laugh??? And it wasn’t even that funny!!! All Ortega did was say some stupid pun about trees?? And they just burst out laughing like they’ve been storing it in for forever! Everyone stopped what they were doing right then and there to watch them laugh so hard they couldn’t breathe, including me. They have a really nice laugh. I want to make them laugh like that again.   
  
Training today was good! I finally got a punch in, although they completely floored me afterward. Progress is slow, but it’s still progress. They looked over me afterward, and they were smiling again, like they were happy that i’m doing better than before.  They even offered to lift me up!   
  
I’m taller than them. I don’t think they appreciate that very much, but I like it. Feels like I could just crouch down and  ~~ki~~  
  
Anyways. They hugged me first as I flew them up. Like I said, progress!  
  
 **1:22 AM,**  
 **new entry in Things They Do:**

****oh my god oh my god oh my god oh my god oh my god  
  
 **1:23 AM,**  
 **new entry in Things They Do:  
**  
oh my god  
  
 **2:30 AM,  
new entry in Things They Do: **

fuck it im going to go and if they never want to see me again then fine  
  
 **10: 45 AM,**  
 ** **new entry in Things They Do:**  
**

OH MY GOD OH MY GOD THEY KISSED ME BACK HOLY SHIT FUCK FUCK FUCK THIS MAY BE THE BEST NIGHT? OF MY LIFE? 


	6. julia realizes that maybe, just maybe, chen and his boyfriend are gay

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ortega stumbling upon m! sidestep and Steel while they are on a date? They've been secretly seeing eachother or something

After three months of knowing no one will ever see them like this, Ortega shows up and sends it all to hell, sends it all to heaven.   
  
“Oh my god?” She says, and the sleeve of her shirt slides down her shoulder.  She holds the keys with a fist. Her mouth is wide open, her eyes are sparkling, and the crow’s feet deepen. “ _Oh my god?”_ The door to the apartment is open, and Chen didn’t have enough time to let go of your hand.   
  
He still doesn’t let go. Perhaps both of your hands are too tangled with each other’s fingers to even consider letting go, for fear of losing a tiny part of yourselves. The thought sends static chills up your arm, and you squeeze just a little tighter.   
  
“Julia,” Chen says, coolly. “What happened to the idea of knocking first?”  
  
“You two? Are? Holding hands?” She answers. “You aren’t even trying to fight?”   
  
“Fuck me,” You say, and Chen shoots you a glance. The chills grow stronger. Julia notices, and gasps.   
  
“Oh my god.” She whispers. It’s like she’s found the secrets to every universe and every living thing.   
  
Chen sighs, and stretches up from the couch where both of you were sitting, the tv show in the late night channel all but forgotten. Spoon lies undisturbed next to you, and you pet him as Chen gently detaches himself from your side. You shouldn’t be feeling the loss so keenly as you do, considering the circumstances, but you run toward every brush of bodies eagerly nowadays. It’s even more motivating knowing that Chen feels the same way.   
  
Julia gapes at Chen, and wildly throws her arms back and forth from you to him, clearly looking for an answer. Chen gives her none. He closes the door behind her, and pats her on the shoulder, before sitting back on the couch, leaning closer toward you. He leaves enough space for one more person to sit.   
  
You can feel the warmth coming from him even more than before. “You wanna watch? It’s a cooking show,” You offer, leaning into Chen as well. Spoon sniffles.   
  
Julia glares at you and drops the keys to the ground, mumbling something in rapid spanish under her breath. She stalks toward the empty space and fits nicely in it, crossing her arms.   
  
“I can’t believe you didn’t tell me,” She grumbles. “I can’t believe I didn’t see it.  Don’t tell me you two are dating!!!”  
  
“Alright,” Chen says blankly. “We’re not dating.”   
  
“ _He’s wearing your shirt, Wei._ ” She snipes back, already sitting in a comfortable position and eyes flickering from you to Chen to the TV to spoon to back to the TV.  
  
Chen shoots you another glance and looks at your shirt. “Huh,” He says, and it’s a warm kind of huh, and you like how it sounds. “You’re right. He is.”


	7. angie's mind.........wild

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Villain!Sidestep/Lady Argent/MC shenanigans? Lady Argent being conflicted for sooo long between the two but then the mask gets swiped by her claws in the middle of one of their many fights, much to both of their surprise, and MC absolutely aware they're screwed one way or another

 

1.Oh baby goody two-shoes she’s far from sweet and nothing but all solid and one day she’ll rip a man’s arm twice and thrice because she’s that far from sweet, yeah. It’ll be hard to explain to the higher-ups because there’s only so many times you can say “He pissed me off” and get away with. You piss her off, die.

2.Oh honey sugar pumpkin she’s far from cute and she’s got a body that people will die because of. She’s both venomous and poisonous and one day she’s gonna snap the world in half and there’s only so many times you can use the “I’m faster, I’m better, I’m stronger” before people will go “Yeah we know, get over yourself. Shut up and sit still already.”  
  


3.she’s lost her mind she’s lost her mind she’s lost her mind who took it from her

4.When you come in the first thing you do is look at her teeth and she wants to smile harder and tell you “Yeah they’re sharp wanna try it out?” But she can’t because someone made her lose her mind. Julia says “This is her,” while you stare at her rows and rows of teeth. She wants to say “Yeah you could tell by how she’s looking like she fell straight to the ninth  level of hell and stood right back and hiked her way through.” It’s the only reason she lets you find her mind. You think tired. You think tired and she goes “Welcome to girlhood baby you’re one of the sharks too ain’t ya?” 

5.You don’t want anyone to know about your honey cute niceness you’re as mean as a crow and you’re absolutely wicked but girl, oh girl, you’re more tired than you are angry. She wants to to rip you limb from limb and go “Get angry and fight back sitting still ain’t gonna get your canines any sharper baby sweetie,” but she’s NOT LISTENING. Julia’s in love with her and Chen’s in-okay with her and Herald’s in love with her and it makes her blood boil it makes her skin steam because they don’t know girlhood as well as she does as well as you do no

6.She thinks you’re filing your molars instead of your canines. You’re biding your time. She always knew you’re cuckoo crazy batshit and she wants to shout “Welcome to womanhood sugar cinnamon bun lovely you’re the hottest i’ve ever met let me chomp your neck and mark it” 

7.Julia can fuck off she’s so smart she’s so unpredictable she can stab your wounds again and again and you’ll never know it. She’s the quiet kind of angry the one you’ll think is sad and Angie hates is. Julia can fuck off with her sad eyes and crackle pop pop powers and her fake legs and her “i’m gonna get better I know i’m broken,” mentality. What happened to licking off the dust of those she’s beaten? 

8.Baby boy Herald baby boy Daniel sucking his own thumb being too nice too dumb too pretty too sweet sugar lollipop gross and she doesn’t like chewing she likes swallowing and he sighs and swoons and sings his songs of green little bubbling brooks and butterfly milk and soft wheat prairies because he’s a LIAR and a COWARD and DECLAWED

9.Wei Chen mister manhood mister mean mister better and old and “Control yourself Angie,” oh how he makes her scream he’s nothing but a WIMP who sits still and goes “it is what it is” and only cries in the dark of his mind like wow what a guy what a hunk she wants him to BREAK and see what he says when he feels just like her

10.THEIR molars hurt, oh how they hurt. She scars THEIR face to make sure THEY have something to remember her by and she steals THEIR cape and when THEY’RE gone (winning) she stuffs it on her face and breathe in the scent of pure unadulterated freedom. Gosh wow bunny kitten little sweetheart aren’t THEY sexy next time THEY see her she’ll kiss that scar plump and full and hold THEIR neck (lightly, lightly)

11.Next time she sees you you’re with baby boy moon-eyed Daniel and it makes her so pissed off she kicks your knees and she almost says she’s sorry afterwards but she thinks you understand

12.Oh pumpkin pumpkin cutie pie ain’t you lovely what a whopper she’ll wanna kiss you real nice and smooth and make you say her name as out of breath as THEY do when she’s pulverizing THEM in THEIR fancy shmancy suit

13.You or THEM you or THEM who does she wanna love more? you or THEM

14.YOU 

15.YOU’RE so nice and sweet when YOU’RE kissing her real nice and smooth she should have known those sharp molars YOU’VE got were too angry to sit still and she keeps stuffing her hand down YOUR throat to feel the bite and she bites YOUR neck and YOU let her because she wants to know what pure unadulterated freedom tastes and baby, YOU’RE just that.


	8. nana says "fuck cops kiss girls" and means it in more ways than one

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> hhhh your Argent/Sidestep stuffs are so good. Do you still take prompts? If not just ignore this, if so I just wanted to say: things quickly getting heated and intense between them, but then they kinda remember they're both still absolute virgins each with their own pile of trust issues xD

Nana stares up at the sky, not knowing what color it is right now. She’s breathing through the sting of adrenaline that’s still lacing her lungs, and her heart beats as if it’s trying to smash it’s way out of her ribcage. She knows she’s smiling, she knows her mask is off. If she could manage catching her breath, the resulting whoop would be loud enough to topple the building she’s lying on.

Holy fuck. Holy fuck. That was maybe better than anything else she’s ever fought, with all the bets having been thrown off beforehand. And there were certainly enough punches to let Nana have at least few minutes to scrabble the helmet on and leave before Argent grabs her by the throat and carries her toward definite exposure. 

  
Nana manages to sit up, one hand supporting her weight, the other wiping the blood from her face.   
  
Argent’s already standing, figure just as pristine as before the fight, hands carelessly resting on her hips. It’s a figure Nana doesn’t mind looking at, it’s a view she’s quickly getting used to.   
  
The silver of Argent’s skin gleams on the sunlight, and when she sees Nana’s face, it’s a quick flash of confusion, before a grin of recognition grows on her face. A shark smelling blood, a hunter seeing a bullseye. She’s too pretty to be holding herself like a gun, but here they are, aren’t they.   
  
Nana watches her silently as Argent walks fluidly up to her, and stares at the offered hand she gives out with suspicion.   
  
“Oh please,” Argent sneers, voice saccharine sweet, “You’re too fun to beat for me to let you go. I’m not in the mood, either.”   
  
“Double or nothing. If I win, then you don’t mention this.” Nana answers. She grabs Argent’s hands, which are smooth and warm.

That gets the Ranger’s eyes flashing, and her eyebrows raise in interest. If she has a weakness, it’s not being able to say no to a little danger. “Hmm. And when you lose?”   
  
The barb Nana ignores to answer cooly, eyes flickering down to Argent’s sharp-tooth grin. “Whatever the hell you want.”

Lady Argent guffaws. Her sharp eyes roam up and down Nana’s face. “You know what? Nah.”   
  
Oh no. Oh no oh no oh no this is very, very bad. Nana’s about to pick up her fists and knock Argent out, erase her memory of this fight even existing and getting the hell out of there until: “It would just be a lot better if I just sleep with you.”   
   
That makes her downward spiral of eventual death pause, and lead her toward a downward spiral of confusion. As much as she likes to pretend otherwise, Nana actually, has no idea about anything concerning sex.   
  
The adrenaline high spikes up and down on her nerves, threatening to go frazzled and leave her dead in a heap of lead electric shocks. On this roof, without her mask, no less.   
  
It’s the nerves and the dubiousness that makes the next sentence come out. “I’m a re-gene.” She says, blank.   
  
Argent blinks, raises an eyebrow. Her stance on this seems impartial, like she’s done this before. “So?” She says, and her hair flips in the wind. “What about it?”   
  
A heart-beat skip. Two. Three. The disbelief grows. “I’ve never-” She titters out, and suddenly looking at Argent’s eyes are too much. She looks at the ground.   
  
That pulls another laugh from the Ranger. “Oh yeah? Me neither.” Argent croons, clearly amused.   
  
Nana stares at the rooftop under her feet, not knowing what color it is. This isn’t what she planned, but what the hell. It’s better than dying? 


	9. *snaps my fingers* wuhluhwuh

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ortega and Argent both realizing that they are making out with Sidestep and deciding to get them back. Your genderpick!

 

Julia opens her mouth. Closes it. Her lipstick’s smudged on the corner. She doesn’t notice. Argent does. Argent doesn’t wipe it off. Instead, she crosses her arms. Uncrosses them. Wipes her palms on her thighs. 

  
“So. Uh. This happened? I guess? And it’s still happening?” She mumbles, and the static of her fingertips make her braid loosen even more as she runs her hand through it. It’s been getting longer, ever since Nana rose back from the dead and started playing  _Bachelorette_  on both of them.    
  
“I can hear you short-circuiting from here,” Argent replies, and she clenches her fists. Unclenches them. Bites her lips. Runs the bite marks over with her tongue.   
  
“Shut-! Shut up Angie, i’m trying to  _think-”_  
  
“OR,” Argent bites out, and she manages to grab onto Julia’s shoulder without shocking herself to death and a half, “you don’t think. God knows what happens when you try to think. Besides, I already know what to do.”   
  
Julia’s head lifts up, confused and fretful. She’s so drunk with Sidestep that she doesn’t even notice how much this isn’t a big deal. Which, Argent can sympathize with. Nana is a great fucking kisser, after all, and it’s kind of hard not to get in deep with the woman. Falling in love with Nana is like falling down a sewer drain, like jumping off a cliff with a rubber bungee-jumping line, like reaching the highest skyscraper just to land on a mailbox the other side of town.   
  
Falling in love with Nana means kissing her when she’s going batshit with her ‘evil’ plans of taking down a government that never did anything for her, for Argent. It’s like tasting the other side of a world where Argent didn’t have to stick to rules. Falling in love with Nana means kissing one side of her coin while Julia’s kissing the other side.  
  
Ok. Nana’s been leading double lives. Argent can get that. It’s still annoying as hell to realize that she’s not the only one. Painfully annoying. Really top-notch fucking aggravating.   
  
“What are you thinking?” Julia asks, strained. It’s not hurting her exactly, because Julia’s idea of a relationship is…very vague, and she’s never been exclusive to the letter. But, it still must hurt her.   
  
Argent grins. Makes sure that her pointed teeth are visible. Hoods her eyes. Leans up to Julia’s face. Presses herself against the taller woman. Makes it obvious.    
  
Julia’s expression is dubious at worst. Curious at best. Good.  
  
“Angie.” She says, and Argent laughs high and free. “Come on. Really?”   
  
“When Nana walks through that door,” Argent replies, bold with the idea, bold with Julia’s electric-shocked arms, “We won’t even notice.”   
  
Julia starts to laugh, nervous. She doesn’t even notice she’s leaning in. Great. Argent can work with this. “You don’t like sharing.” She answers, tucking a silver hair behind a silver ear.   
  
Argent rolls her eyes. The next words she says are felt, with how close they are to Julia’s pouty mouth. “You can teach me,” She whispers.   
  
___  
  
“God damnit,” Nana says, and Julia takes a second too late to rip out of Argent’s hold and look up, blush-faced and kissed-mussed. Nana’s auburn hair is loose and wild, and her black eyes sharper than ever. She looks murderous. “You could have done literally  _anything else_ to let me know that I fucked up. _”  
_  
“You fucked up alright,” Angie slurs, palm gently kneading Julia’s uncovered waistline. “You really fucked up. And i’m super, _super_  pissed off at you~”  
  
“Uhgh?” Julia offers. “H. Heeyy??” 


	10. sidestep you drunk edgy bitch he's not that into her

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> prompt: a little angst never hurt anyone! how about some chargestep, where ortega's a little worried about a certain someone

  
_‘sometimes i feel like i’m running with borrowed time. that if someone looks at me then they’ll know my life doesn’t belong to me and they’ll grab it out of my hands. sometimes i feel like i’ve only got one hand left.’_  
  
you think those words. you do not speak them. spilling those words out of your mouth would be close to mutiny, would be close to bile. you’d be married to the hurt in his eyes if you said that to him.   
  
he’d try to help: and that, you think, would be the closest thing to a double-suicide you’ll ever see.   
  
manslaughter, at least. he wouldn’t know what to do with himself.   
  
he sits loosely on the bar stool, looking all of twenty-eight and with unbuttoned collars showing off the canyons of his neck, chest, the gold chain he wears, the metallic grafts that whirr just-this-shade-of non-existent. a sweating whiskey is half-drunk in his hand, and he smiles with his teeth.  
  
you stuff your hands in the pockets of your sweater, because you were always taught to keep your hands to yourself when you aren’t hitting a pressure point.  
  
he’s chatting up a girl next to him, the girl blonde with long legs and longer eyelashes and lips nearly as pouty as his own.   
  
you chew at your lip with your canines, and watch as the two of them lean toward each other in that way only people who aren’t sleeping alone tonight do.   
  
it’s one of those nights where you think about your wrists and where you think about the color orange. it’s one of those night where you count every single person in the room and count how many minutes it’ll take until they’re all dead. special ops? yeah, it took me ten minutes to lock this place down. yeah, you can pick me up. yeah, it was messy, because you built me like that.   
  
“ ‘Tega,” you whisper, and you let yourself (barely, barely) tap his shoulder with one timid hand. he breaks off mid-sentence and swerves from Long Blonde to look at you, eyes more alert than the empty glasses in front of him would’ve made you guess. his head tilts to one side, and the smile that he pasted on for Long Blonde is lopsided.   
  
“ ‘m gonna go.” you say, barely able to form any words. (barely, barely) “i think..i think i’m done. have fun, ok?”   
  
the music in the bar is a jazzy number, and every-time a saxophone croons low and sweet, it hammers into you head. the laughs, (screams) the clinks of glass (windows, pop pop shatter,)  start hitting your pulse, and his lopsided pretty smile with his sloppy in a hot way figure is hitting your eyes.   
  
he starts standing up, reaching out to lift you up as well. “not without me you’re not,” he breezes, “you’re drunk. what kind of friend would i be if i let you stumble through the streets like this?!”   
  
“ s’fine. i’m going alone.” you answer, because his hands are warm and tingly on your forearm and between your shoulder blades, and because you bet his mouth’s real warm and tingly, too “leave me alone, please.”   
  
he doesn’t let go. (yeah, i’m here. yeah, you can cuff me again, and yeah, i know they’ll hurt because i’ve been disobedient, huh? i’ve been thinking things like early mornings, it’s okay if they hurt) you trip when you stand up fully.          “ricardo,” you whisper, and there’s a tear dripping from your face (that’s not protocol, that’s not protocol, delusion, delusive)  
  
(i’m running on borrowed time, sorry)  
  
“m’sorry, i promise i won’t do anything awful, just…bye.” you say, and you try to go, but he comes with you, determined, concerned, kind and not unkind.   
  
“you’re something awful, right now,” ortega says, playful. lightening the mood. you agree with him. “and i’m keeping you and taking you home anyways.”   
  
 _“sometimes i feel like i’m running with borrowed time. that if someone looks at me then they’ll know my life doesn’t belong to me and they’ll grab it out of my hands. sometimes i feel like i’ve only got one hand left.”_  
  
you think those words. you do not speak them. spilling those words out would be like robbing him in the streets, like stabbing him with a fork.   
  
“idiot,” you say, instead.  
  
“that’s me,” he answers, always.


	11. herald: you can make a religion outta me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> CAN I ORDER SOME CUTE HAROLD GIGGLING

“You know, I used to try to get a look at your face when there was footage of you with your mask on,” He starts, feinting a punch. He always talks when you’re training, because his dad taught him that words are stronger than hands, and it’s been so drilled into him that he still never lands his punches to this day. 

  
You land every one you make, because you’ve never known that sometimes you’re supposed to pull ‘em.    
  
“That’s stupid.” You say, and you kick the back of his knees so they buckle and he falls with a yelp. “Always look for your back. You keep only fixating in one spot during fights.”   
  
He stays still on the ground for a minute, before rolling over and catching his breath. The blond hair frames his face, dirty and sweaty as it is. His mouth is parted, and his eyes sparkle in that way they do when he’s got something to say. It’s like seeing Virgin Mary’s face back when you’d crawl into those cathedrals. You don’t believe in those stained glass buildings, though.   
  
“Darn it,” He puffs. “Every-time my mom would let me watch TV, i’d re-watch the battle scenes out in Los Diablos and try to copy your fighting moves. I researched different fighting styles just so I could pinpoint yours.”   
  
“I don’t have a ‘style’.” You say, and you stuff your hands into your pockets. “I just do it.”   
  
“Nuh uh,” He answers, hands clenching and unclenching on the ground, eyes staring up at the ceiling all virgin mary and orphan hands holding up wooden bowls. He looks like he’s floating even when he’s plastered on the ground, trying to get back up again. “You fight weird. Like, I dunno, like you forget everything but fighting. Like you shed your skin and then you’re suddenly this-this,  _machine,_  and you fight really dirty, too. You’re made outta teeth when you fight.”   
  
Like a machine. Like dirty teeth. Cracked pavement and the fingernails you embedded on your cheeks. You breathe. In and out.   
  
The moment passes, and you tug your sleeves down lower. “That doesn’t sound cool.”   
  
“You fought like the cameras weren’t watching. That’s what I liked the most. You weren’t doing it because you wanted to, yeah? You were doing it because you had to, and that’s cool because there’s no other way to fight the bad! It. It really got me.”  
  
You look at his cherub face and he’s looking at you. You’ve always considered him young, but that’s not quite true, is it? He’s young, but he’s not a kid. He’s understood more about you than you realized.   
  
You were doing it because you had to.   
  
Those cathedrals were always empty when you broke into them. Probably because it was in the middle of the night, but also probably because you weren’t born from the earth, so your not really a God’s creation. Either way, they were empty, and you had nothing but those mary statues always looking up with her hands holding a baby or just uplifted in general. She looked sad, sometimes. She was chosen to be something important, but she didn’t really choose for herself, did she? It was something she just had to do.   
  
Daniel continues to look at you, and despite everything, you smile.   
  
“Clever,” You say, because he is. He laughs delightedly, and bops up, hands covering his snorts.   
  
“That’s the nicest thing you’ve ever said to me!” He gushes, smile big and wide.   
  
“Don’t let it get to your head.” You say, grinning back. “Come on. Let’s figure out what the hell your fighting is like.”


	12. mortum pulled a gun at me and asked me "tell me the name of god you fungal piece of shit"

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> MORTUM...SIDESTEP. CONSIDER

“I believe it was Chekov who said; If in the first act you have hung a pistol on the wall, then in the following it should be fired, no?”   
  
Her hand is steady, and her eyes are clear. The cool end of the gun touches your forehead like a goodnight kiss. You know that she expects you to be scared, or at least give her a reaction half-way to predictable.   
  
However, the good doctor has never had an eye for the predictable. Her mind snags on the indecipherable, on the unreadable.   
  
And so, when she turns off the safety, you greet the sound with a solemn nod, and touch the pistol with your hand, tapping it once.   
  
“Didn’t Murakami disprove that already? I think you’re being old-fashioned,” You whisper, and when she moves the gun from your head to your shoulder and shoots, the gasp of pain sounds as close to a laugh you’ll ever have this year and the last. 

___  
  
Things grow blurry after that, and then you’re slumped up in a trashy love seat browned with age and she’s pouring a bourbon into two glasses on the mini bar across from it.  _To help you with your needling complaints,_  she had said as an explanation.   
  
“You’re awfully well-read for someone who believes brute force and thievery is the path-way to success,” The silence she breaks with that sentence wasn’t as uncomfortable as you expected. Perhaps it’s the fact you know her and her ways already, and perhaps it’s because she’s built up this persona of you in her mind and she always finds advantages in those she finds wanting.   
  
“I wouldn’t peg you as a fan of Russian literature,” You throw back. With her, in this body, it’s like a constant tennis court. First she serves, and you hit.   
  
No. That’s not quite it. Fencing. Block, parry, strike, block, parry. All of this in the span of two seconds.   
  
She hands you the bourbon, the glass ice cold with the liquid, and downs her own glass in one gulp.   
  
She gives a little sigh of content. “I was always a fan of Sophia Tolstoy. Marvelous woman, brilliant mind. The patience of a saint.”   
  
“How many times did she revise War and Peace?”   
  
“Hm, seven. And under candlelight as well. Poor thing, ten children.”   
  
You swallow the bourbon as well, and shiver under the stinging pain of the bullet wound. It still bleeds, but you trust her steady hands.   
  
“Is the reason why you shot me because you see yourself in her?” You ask. You know she holds grudges. You know this because she gives you a look of disdain at your question, wrinkles her nose, and sniffs.  
  
“I shot you,” She says, voice dripping with the subtle surety of a woman winning a game, “Because I see your employee in her.”  
  
Ah. The puppet. Of course.  
  
“ _I am a collection of dismantled almosts._ Anne Sexton _.”_ You start.  
  
Block.  
  
“She is a bit crass for my liking,” Mortum titters.   
  
Parry.  
  
“My employee doesn’t exist,” You answer.  
  
Strike.


	13. Rage Belongs To Julia Part 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> how do you feel about julia showing off that rage really does belong to women, if you know what i mean

3\. “No, I’m not killing you.” She says, and you wish she decided to wear a mask after all. You wish so many things. That’s not normal. This isn’t normal.

She looks at your helmet, and you know she can’t see anything but herself.

Her voice is low. Her voice is similar to the one she uses right after she’s done kissing you. Not quite, but close. “That’ll just be letting you go. No,”

The buzz of electricity starts to hum, and your throat where she claws it tight grows sensitive to the sound. You swallow, knowing she notices.

Ortega, Charge. You told her Sidestep died for real this time.

She leans closer to your helmet. You can hear her breathing.

“I don’t think I have to tell you this will hurt,” She whispers, right where your ear would be.  
  
____

1\. She wakes up in the middle of the night, and dreamt of falling. You know how a dream ends right as you’re about to land? Her dreams end when you land.   
  
The cold sweat trickling down her back makes the electricity whirring up her spine iced and killing.   
  
She fumbles on her bed, through the sheets, slams her hands over the nightstand for the phone, praying that she won’t fry it again this time.   
  
Talking to you is like talking to a ghost, but she’ll take whatever she can get. Beggars can’t be choosers, and she’s been drowning in debt. Debts of living past her due date at least a dozen times, debts of money, debts of lost shadows and fried lightbulbs.   
  
She presses the button that calls your phone, already mumbling what excuse she’ll use. ‘ _You said you had enemies, and I’m worried. You haven’t been seen in a week.’_ The excuses of _‘Please don’t leave again. I had a nightmare where you put that in your mouth and that I wasn’t strong enough to keep you down.’_  
  
The phone rings in the pitch black, and then the tin of a voicemail box not yet set up plays.   
  
____  
  
2\. Julia Ortega is known for the flashiness of hero work, but it’s not her real job.   
  
Her real job is this: tracking the real threats under the cover of the press fawning over something else, dig deep and deeper until she rips out the roots as well as the leaves.   
  
Her real job is this: hiding up in the high ground, crouching to avoid being seen, butterfly knives in the pockets ready to be used. Tilted head eavesdropping on information. The information as to where that new villain’s hideout is, the information about how they work with Doctor Mortum now, the information that her ‘boxing partner’ works for them as well, the information that this new villain knows more about Sidestep than she does.   
  
Her real job is jumping down the roof and cutting the hamstrings of the henchmen, breaking noses with her elbows, all without looking away from the new villain, all without saying a word, all under the span of three minutes.   
  
It’s slamming men twice her size down the walls so hard they can taste their own tongues, it’s silencing the fighter ones.   
  
It’s kicking the new villain to the floor and straddling them in a really ugly way, a really mean way, and letting the shocks hit them minute after minute, because that’s what bad guys like them deserve.   
  
It’s stabbing without warning. It’s knowing without flinching. It’s her job.


	14. Rage Belongs To Julia Part 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rage Belongs to Women, Part 2: The Shocking Conclusion (or, 'How Sidestep Lost Their Mask')

 

 The mask you wear reflects her face, you know this, but it’s always been her thing to pick you apart in ways you thought only a telepath could do.   
  
You two could speak in ways that were different than words, different than you cracking open the windows of people’s souls and to read their secrets. One touch on your elbow from her, and you knew what she wanted. One furrowed brow and she would know why you were gritty. That is part of why you loved her.   
  
Loved? Loved?   
  
Perhaps you have crossed past anything called loved. It’s a mutual clawing you two had; leaning against one another’s flaws and strengths to form enough limbs to hold each other up.   
  
Loved? Or still loving?   
  
The mask doesn’t let you tell. The storm that is her thoughts rip at your senses, and the bolts of pure energy she shocks you with threatens to disintegrate any sort of solidity left.   
  
You both pant. Hers are hard-bladed and rage-tinted; her eyes are wild and sharp. Her fingers are bloody and shivering, and she is nowhere near done.   
  
“You’re going to tell me where Sidestep is, what the  _hell_  you did to them,” She snarls, and despite her being wild and sharp, she is also cold. There is no heat in a lightning strike.   
  
She spits on the ground. “And whatever they had to go through,” She adds, “I’m going to do to you  _ten times worse_.”   
____  
  
 The mask gets ripped off, and all the truth flies into her expression.   
  
You gasp, and it’s not the gasp she’s used to.   
  
Everything is silent.  
  
The hardness of her arms falter, and her hands flutter to her mouth, her neck.   
  
The truth is in her expression, and suddenly, that unbreakable storm that you’ve never been able to read grows, and grows, and grows, until:  
  
‘ _Oh, please. Please no. Not this. Anything but this.’  
_  
Her mouth is open, but no words come out. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> you can't listen to instructions it seems :pensive emoji:


	15. Rage Belongs To Julia Part 3 (the electric bugaloo)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> not gonna lie, i would sell my soul for Rage Belongs to Julia Part 3 even though i know you ended the story in the perfect place :') thank you for sharing your work with the world <3

You are a villain. And villains don’t  _care._  
  
Your mouth is still open. Your throat still sizzles.   
  
Her hands are burned. Your eyes are wide, and all she thinks is  _No. No_.   
  
Perhaps it was a gift for you to not have been able to read her before, something that you would have clasped your grip over and treasured: oasis  in the middle of the ocean, light in the middle of a dead street, all of those.   
  
Her thoughts are drenched in alkalis, in liquid monoxide. It stings your eyes to read them, while she’s dragging herself off of you, with her hands flying back and forth in hummingbird movements. Touch you, don’t. Comfort, with the same hands that hurt.   
  
Do it, don’t. What a way to summarize everything you two have ever been. 

What happened to using your hands to braid for her?  
  
What happened to caring for her?  
  
(You’re a villain now, and villains  _never_  care.)

You can’t call out, because your voice is stuffed with atmospheric electricity, with the imprints of her old hurts underneath the shield of your armor.   
  
She heaves, slamming her hands on the floor. Her eyelids batter up and down, windows slamming shut during a windstorm. Her thoughts taste of the fizz of soda when it’s too dioxized to drink, but she lets them form into your mind nonetheless.  _I don’t understand._  
  
And then, she roars. It’s gutting and hoarse and furious, it bangs your ears with plasma-scorch, it hurts, it hurts, it hurts.  
  
(But. You are still a villain.)  
  
“ _WHY_?” She screams, and oh, oh/ does it double-cross your sight. “ _WHY_? I COULD HAVE HELPED! I COULD HAVE HELPED!”  
  
Her expression is darker than an oil-spill. You throw a molotov into it by coughing weakly.   
  
She still presses herself against the walls, still keeps her hands plastered against the floor.   
  
 _I COULD HAVE SAVED YOU I COULD HAVE HELPED YOU_  
  
She screams again, and it comes out as a sob.  
  
(And you don’t  _care_.)


	16. idk why but as i was writing this i kept thinking of megamind

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> doesn’t realize they’ve been injured for steel........................

While you do not pull the trigger, the trigger is pulled nonetheless.   
  
The irony of it all hits harder than the actual bullet. After all, he’s been living with gunmetal bruising his body how salt crusts when dried. 

Somewhere, perhaps a few miles off, a kitchen timer the shape of an egg has just rang out. He hopes that someone’s there to reset it.   
  
______  
  
Parabolic is this: harsh gasps of air pushing through shut-tight mouths, limbs heaving under stainless-iron weights; he falls on his back and almost never on his feet.  
  
Something black seeps through the pipes nestled next to his chest. It bubbles to look like pores, and to touch it would make his hands slick. Bless whatever is higher than the stratosphere for multi-tasking/ a knife is pointed at his throat and he’s grateful that technology doesn’t sweat.   
  
The knife clatters to the cement as soon as he breaks the wrist holding it, and the resounding scream sounds as if a furnace touches steam.   
  
He coughs, and the black spits out. It will be alright, there’s always a system for ridding of unnecessary functions. Right now there is nothing but zeroes and ones and ticks of civilians in his eyes, filming his sight.   
  
Three civilians left, four feet off, behind him. He cannot afford to fall. No One will plaster him down, and his turbines will blast into half-nickels, and No One will croon at the smell of combustible victory. Three civilians, four feet off, all of them scared and crying.   
  
It is so much easier for Wei to think of him as no one.  
  
___  
  
“Give up,” Growls out No One.   
  
“That’s not something I was built for.” Steel says.   
  
____  
  
“Give up,” Steel chokes out, and the black boils under the heat of his lead wires.   
  
No One kneels on a pool of himself. “I can’t,” He says. “I don’t know how.”  
  
____  
  
Civilian number two has a gun. There’s nothing poetic about it.  
  
____  
  
The titanium of the end is too slick to stare at directly. He needs to glaze at it from the side mirrors, from the sun-shadow of No One’s slumped body against the wall.  
  
He cannot look at the suit with two eyes, so he turns a profile and instead watches as the cries of the sirens glow red and sickly blue: poison frogs.   
  
“You need to leave before they come,” He says, the words the groan of a falling, forgotten home. His eyes drip with exhaustion. He cannot tell whether the copper in his mouth is from the part of his body that is natural, or from the part that rejects DNA and speaks in calculus.   
  
Somewhere, a mile or two off, someone is flipping a coin into the air. He hopes it lands on heads.  
  
“You’re….you’re bleeding, idiot.” No One hisses, clutching his torso. “You fucking idiot, you’re  _hurt_.”  
  
No One collapses, the thwump of a vacuum the only sound he makes. Then, he coughs.   
  
Steel looks down, and realizes that all the black that seeps out of his armor to paint it a different color is blood.


	17. boring. uninteresting. could be better. 3/10.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> How about some survivors guilt with either Ortega or Steel

People begin to ask Wei about Ortega, peppering it in here and there during work hours, and he  watches every time how their anxiety loses over their curiosity. Anyone who knew Ortega well enough wouldn’t have asked. And those who ask, don’t want the actual truth. So he feeds him the same thing he’d tell the press, but word it differently.   
  
He does what a good employee does; he instills faith in the Marshall, lets him have his weakness, but not too much to as to make people doubt his capabilities. 

“Chen,” Gina says, her hands idle on the keyboard. She leans toward Wei in an overly familiar way, despite the desk. “I’ve noticed that Ortega was a bit..distracted during the meeting, is he-?”  
  
“Fine.” He says, final. “I wouldn’t worry.”   
  
“Steel, sir.” The med says, eyes shifty. “The Marshall?”  
  
Chen grabs the pen, and thinks about turning it to dust. Instead, he gently writes down his signature, and looks up, face neutral.  
  
“Is working, and won’t appreciate distractions.” He says, and then goes back, grinding his teeth and pretending like the metal they clad on him was traded for his wants and feelings. 

  
It’s lying. Chen has always hated lying, and has always been terrible at it, but there’s something about white lies that make everything else look grey. Paint it over with acrylic so no one can see that Ortega is sinking into the own cracks he made for himself.   
  
Another part of his job, this. He does better work than Ortega’s publicist.   
  
______  
  
He moves his therapy session down to next week and his excuse is that he’s working. ‘There’s unfinished business’ he says. ‘Bills don’t pay themselves.’

The real reason is because he knows therapy has never, and will never work for him. The knowing that he’s too big for a single room, with all the mistakes he’s ever done built up under the prosthetics too still-there to hide. You can’t very well come up to a shrink and say ‘I hate my job, and I hate the fact I should have died at least three hundred times before now, and I hate that this feels worse than before.’  
  
You can’t, he can’t, because he’s Steel. They’ve already got two broken bodies, no need for those that still move.  
  
 _You don’t, and will never belong to yourself._    
  
Instead of therapy, he oils up his own prosthetics, and lets Ortega dampen his shirts when it’s past midnight. He’ll ignore the bile and the disgust. Because they’re friends. At least, until one of them dies. 

“It should have been me,” Ortega cries.  
  
 _You don’t, and will never matter. Your wants are useless to the city._  
  
Chen sighs, and thinks about delaying his session for another month before they grow suspicious. You can’t have a shrink knowing that you feel gross talking to someone who ruined your life in order to save it.   
  
_____  
  
  
Sentinel gives him a cup of coffee, and Chen takes it to be polite.   
  
His face is lined when he asks “How’s Ricardo doing?”   
  
“He’s coping.” Chen says, muscle memory. “It’ll take a while.”   
  
Sentinel hums, and sighs heavily, runs his hands through his hair. His expression is knowing.  
  
Chen tries to avoid any follow up questions by taking a swig from the too-bitter coffee, lets the cup linger, looks out to the window where the city bustles behind. But the coffee’s too cheap and watery even for Chen to handle, and he knows it’s going to kill his stomach later on, so he lets the facade of the cup go, twitching his fingers to tap against the paper cup.   
  
He does this, sometimes. Visit Sentinel. Check up on him. Wei doesn’t like loose ends, and Sentinel, as happily retired as he is, still wants company from someone who understands. There’s no light on, because Wei hates how when you turn on the light switch it looks like the flash of gunfire. Suddenness isn’t his strongest suit.

The clock ticks, and the cars are muffled behind the windows, and Sentinel sits next to Wei, knees touching.   
  
“How are you holding up, Wei?” He asks.   
  
The question is so unexpected that he nearly drops the coffee. Instead, he places it gently on the coffee table, before slumping into his own shoulders and surprising himself with the cracking of his voice.   
  
“God,” He croaks, and his eyes sting without his permission. “ _God_.”


	18. this is an ed sheeran song but like. gay i guess

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> don't you dare pity me for chargestep UwU

_G_ od, you want to tell him that you think he loves you only because you were far away.   
  
God, you want to tell him so much. 

  
The only constants within this is how it’s always dark, how he never sees you, how no matter how rapturous his lashes flutter and how deep his blush can get, he still tangles your hand with his and holds you so tight you think he’ll cut off blood.   
  
He can’t stop touching you, and you can’t stop letting him; both of you cave into one another like a wound restitching itself.   
  
The fall of a card-house, a double-suicide with linked arms, and you hate that you’re not stopping him from loving you, loving this.  
  
It’s those hellenic stories built from fear, and when he kisses your hands clumsy and melting, you can’t stop thinking about how you were never, ever meant for this.   
  
Ripe and soft: that’s how he loves you. Raw and balsamic: that’s how scared you are of it.  
 ___  
  
What you hate the most is how he has never apologized for anything in his life, and yet here he is, on his knees for you. Because he wants to. Because you let him.   
  
Stinging and cruel: that is how you two fight against each other.   
  
He is ruthless when you are in costume, and he is relentless when you are out of it.   
  
Ruthless when he’s furious, relentless when he’s opening up his chest cavity for you.   
  
“I can still remember how you felt like when I first lifted up that mask. I don’t know what I was surprised at more. The part where you let the mask go or the part where you let me do something for you.” He rasps into your hair, each word a substitute for a kiss.   
  
You will stay silent, just like you did then, and you will pretend like it’s not your fault that he will hurt and bleed after all of this.   
  
Then he says: “I’m sorry.”   
  
You tense.   
  
“For what?”   
  
“For letting you down,” He says. “For whatever it is that’s hurting you.”   
  
You freeze, and when you sit up, he lets you. Ice and salt: that is how you say “I don’t need your sorry, Ricardo.” _I don’t need you to tell me your sorry when you love me more than I can understand. I need you to beg for forgiveness when you hate me just as much as I hate myself._  
  
Bleach and antiseptic. “I don’t need you to pity me.”  
  
Nights so late they become early. His brown eyes look like the portraits of sepia, the ones with that strange sadness. “And yet,” He says, “You can’t control what I think of you.”   
  
_______  
  
  
“Sometimes I think about what it means to love someone and the thoughts stick to my skin and then to my bones and between my fingers.” He mutters into the bedsheets. It’s morning, and you stayed the night, and it’s one of the bigger mistakes you made.  
  
In the morning Ricardo takes his kindness and gives it to you. And in return, you take that kindness, weld it into a dagger, and let it stab your stomach, and let it twist.   
  
“Sometimes i think about how you think i’m wrong in loving you but then I realize you’ve never let me do anything about you.” Bedsheets smelling of you and him, and the part where there is no difference anymore. He shifts to pull your hip closer to his.   
  
You pretend you’re half asleep, so you can pretend that you barely understand what he’s saying.  
  
“Me loving you is my rebellion. Me loving you is my way of saying you can’t control every aspect of your life.” He says, and traces patterns on your hips, and falls asleep, and you think about how pretty he is.  
  
The taste of those words feel more sour than your morning breath.   
  
You cannot blame him. He doesn’t know that pitying you is the worst thing he can do, that letting something slip through your fingers is worse than death.  
___  
  
He is everything you have admired and wanted and wished for and more. He is so unbelievingly human in his strengths and in his weaknesses that no matter what you do, you cannot stop him.   
  
You two hold hands outside while talking, and he glows.  
  
Someone asks for a picture, and he’s about to say no when you give the person your phone and ask them to take one from there as well.   
  
Maybe it’s your way of telling him that you can’t stop him, or this, or you.   
  
_____  
  
Because he pities you. Because he’s sorry.   
  
He doesn’t mean to be cruel.   
  
It does not mean that he is being kind.  
  
____  
  
You are trying so hard to be cruel.  
  
It is the kindness that will make it worse, in the end.


	19. SOLANA !!!!!!!!! APOLLO IS QUAKING

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Be Careful What You Wish For and Baby.......

When Julia was around thirteen years old, she saw a shark who took a dog by it’s neck and jumped into the sea. If she can try, she can still remember the barks of that dog, and the splashes of waves against fur and scale.  
  
Mama refused to go to the beach after that, and her dad said it was a cutthroat world out there, and rustled his newspapers. If she can try, she can remember how the soles of her feet burned under the hot sand, and shoulders burnt under the sun.   
  
Solana’s gaze at Ellio looks like a sunburn. Ha, sun on son of sun. Ha, Julia’s already had one too many tans in her twenties to feel the heat, and Ellio’s too young to know what ozone feels like on unprotected skin. Julia crinkles her nose. Ha. Ha ha ha.

There’s nothing funny about this, nothing funny how the television screen illuminates Sol’s scars so much they look like they glow.   
  
“It’s not that, I just-“ She sighs, watching Ellio giggle into her chest. His curls frizz and his smile dimples, and she frowns. “Ellio kind of…made things better. For me. You know?”  
Solana shifts her sunburn eyes up to Julia, and Julia feels twenty six again, the age when she could probably deal with tanning beds and boiling heat, the age when not knowing was good enough. Because you know, she wasn’t tied to anything except the money, because she wasn’t a mother, because she had issues that all people in their twenties had.   
  
“No, I don’t.” Solana whispers. “I don’t know at all.” She looks so tired and  _strong,_  like her body is made out of bullet proof kevlar vests. There’s a gray hair that matches the color of her eyes, and she looks tired.Julia bites her lip, and absentmindedly pets  Ellio’s curls.   
  
“I wish you would,” She whispers. “I wish you’d get it. What it’s like to get better, because of someone who-who  _needs_ you.”  
  
Solana snorts humorlessly. “You’re a hero,” She says, and she tenderly reaches a palm out to Ellio, who thumps his fist into her open hand. It’s probably sticky from eating crackers.    
  
You’re a hero, Julia. You have an entire city that needs you for security theatre. You’ve got millions of lives on your shoulders because of that fact your daddy gave you cool metal legs.   
  
She laughs, to release that bubble. “Yeah, that’s a job. It’s a job that I can’t  _do_ anymore.I have to just smile and wave and pretend I’m still young, and pretend that I’m not drowning doubt, and pretend like I can still do something.”   
  
There’s more paperwork concerning publicity than there was a few years ago. She’s pretty sure she’s sworn into silence by pressing the I Accept The Terms and Conditions button on her phone.   
  
Julia looks at Sol, and then looks at  Ellio in her arms. “But with him,” She whispers adoringly. “It’s like I get to be a real hero. I wish you can understand what I’d do for him.”   
  
______  
  
Solana was never thirteen years old, and the only time she’s ever been on a beach was when everyone she ever knew was getting eaten alive by tiny maggots worth or robots.   
Solana never had a mom who brushed her hair or a dad that made her grit her teeth, and by the time she could tell her skin was blistering underneath a sun she didn’t care.   
  
But when she sees Ellio bundled up in some strangers hands who knows intimately what gunpowder tastes like on your forefinger, and when she sees Julia ripping at the calves of the one who’s holding her down, thunder louder than a bomb, she thinks.   
  
 _Oh_.  _This is what she meant._  
  
Because the problem is this: someone is taking away Julia’s son, and Solana has never been more scared for someone in her entire life. She has never been more afraid, and she has never been more terrified.   
  
 _Oh. This is what she meant._ Fuck the fact that the city could be dying. Fuck the fact that these are people too, because what ruins everything the most is that Ellio is silent in his whimpering. He can’t be more than three years old, and he knows very well how to act when something’s wrong.   
  
He’s quiet, his faced is mussed with tears, his dimpled hands ball up into little tiny fists and he holds his own shirt. And the next thing she knows is this: there’s those hardwires in her coding that’re booting up again, and instead of thinking these people are ‘fuckers’ she thinks of them as ‘targets’. The next thing she knows is that those targets are handing over Elio without their will intact, and after than crumpling to the ground, eyes milky from re-looping their biggest fears over and over again.   
  
The one who hurt Julia gets his nose crushed under Sol’s foot, right after she makes sure Elio’s eyes are closed and tucked into her neck.   
  
Julia doesn’t get up, but instead shivers and convulses.   
In Solana’s hardwire, there isn’t a Julia. It’s only ‘civilian’. It’s only ‘victim’. So Sol leaves her be, places the baby next to her crumpled body.   
  
It’s so fragile, so weak, how Julia slowly reaches out to bring Ellio to her.   
  
“Oh,  _mijo_ ,” She whispers, and Solana hears none of it. “ _Mijo_ , baby, i’m so sorry.”  
Her voice is horrid, cracked, like the thunder got padded into her throat. One of her legs fizzle and twitch. Her hair is singed at the edges, her expression is raw.   
  
Ellio says nothing, but lets himself be held, shaking just as much as his mother is.   
  
In Solana’s hardwire, the targets aren’t dead yet, so the job isn’t done.   
  
In Solana’s brain, she banging against the firewall to make sure she doesn’t do something stupid. It takes a year off of her energy every-time she cracks her fist against this thing that the Farm built her into.   
  
In Solana’s heart, she thinks about Ellio crying, and she lets her mind lose


	20. argent loves bullying herald :(

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Homesickness" with Herald and Argent? Or Sidestep? I don't really see Herald and Argent interacting much, which is sad, because I know it would be lovely to see! Thank you!

disintegration.

the process of losing cohesion. the buildings all feel like the earth’s been carved out, like how he used to dig holes between snow piles just to crawl through the tunnel. his white sneakers touch the sidewalk and suddenly he’s latched on hook and velcro, gross to stitch out. every times he walks on crackled pot-holed cement the  tar echoes in his emptiness of his bones.   
  
they don’t know how he can fly. he’ll tell you that the drug tastes like falling from the international space station. tastes like wax wings melting under 160 degrees farenheit. if the moon was a gas, it’s what he bleeds.

he jumps up again, and he’s not born from the earth anymore. gravity is less known to him than a black-hole. gravity is less-known to him than his mom’s phone calls. his dad’s smile. what’s it like to have an empty wallet, an empty stomach.  
  
ask him anything and he’ll tell you.

she asks him nothing, and he’s telling her anyways.

“my dad came home late enough to get my mom holding a bottle, and i remember telling my mom i was hurt after falling off my bike and then she gave me a twenty.”  he chips, thinking about that red bike that he’d always pick his feet up from the pedals, thinking about how when the tire popped he got a blue one.   
  
she’s wearing a scarf, tugs it down to let her speak. it’s strange how her fangs don’t clack when she talks. you’d think the ring of metal would always be heard. even her eyelashes should tink together when she blinks. the casing of the bullet.

“i wouldn’t mind getting a twenty every time i fell down.” she says, tinny. her voice kind of sounds like the pipes down in old factories, in morning calls where the voice could almost be tasted, like how your hand feels when you’ve slept on it for too long.   
  
‘ _you’d be dirt-poor_ ’ he thinks. ‘ _you never fall down. you’d run out of money._ ’

he coughs. blushes. mars powdering it’s dust on his cheeks, it’s brittleness to his tone.

“yeah, well. i think i was fourteen, or something. i spent it on some paint, a sketchpad. tried drawing me and my brother in ranger gear. kept thinking that we’d be the rangers that save the smallest kids.”

back when he was ten, he always liked the idea of being on the farthest place from a city as possible. jump under the marinara trench. if anyone asked (they didn’t) he’d say he’d love to become a marine biologist, or an astronaut.

jumped from sea city to sea city, and he hasn’t landed quite yet. small mercies, you know? he wonders if his mom would recognize herself in him. everyone always said they both have the same face-shape and nose. he gets the blonde from his dad.

no, they wouldn’t. his parents hated kids.

argent grunts,  cracking her knuckles, the pops louder than they should be. “life has a funny way of making your dreams come true.” she says. it sounds a little sad.

she doesn’t tell, but he asks anyway.

“do you miss san fran?” his words are hushed.   
  
the sadness is gone, her back straightens against the wall. “why would i miss it?”

“i don’t know. you had family there? maybe you had a favorite way to get home?”

he remembers his favorite way home. the long one. the one where the driveway would only show whether or not his parent were home at the last second, when he’d tiptoe up and dream about all the things he’d do alone, if he was home alone, wonder how long his parents would be gone. it was his favorite and least favorite, because if you climb up the rock blocking the trail, you’d see the cars right away.

argents eyes don’t shift, but her fingers twitch. like they’re aching to hold something. “no.” she says. she isn’t hushed. she is never hushed.

jupiter places cushions under his shins, and he’s three inches taller than her. the bone marrow that he doesn’t have anymore stings. there’s something vulgar with not having a favorite way to get home. “nothing?”

she sighs through her nose, irritated. it’s been around thirty minutes. next time, he’ll have to make sure not to push her. next time, he’ll be less himself, and they can get to forty minutes.

“i don’t miss anything. once it’s gone, it’s gone, and you deal with it. the end.” she says. simple. text-book. fucking end of a video game.

he wonders if she was one of those who killed all the NPCS in a game to get the loot. pluto takes his nervous system and bunches it. his voice comes out hoarse. “it’s not that easy.”  he says, and looks down to the ground he hates to touch.

his brother loved to lay on the ground and soak in the sun. said something about belonging to the earth, being made of soil. herald always loved the theory that people were just star-dust.

argent is made of the things that sink in water. she snorts. there’s something vulgar about how she sheaths the sad into something cold.

  
“it is that easy. you’re just weak.” she says, light, mocking.


	21. im just as confused as you are with whats going on rn

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> came back wrong for mc (basically canon b u t)

Instead of rain, the city is given ash and bright white flakes the closest thing to snow you’ll ever see blanket the Los Diablos streets, which kick up in skeletons to chill the air. Inside the room, the white boot-prints trail in to the carpet; Pompeii seeping in. 

You almost absently crack your fingers and hear the pops, twist your two hands together to keep them still, and place them on your lap. A quick look at the clock up on a wall against you.   
  
11:45pm.  
  
It’s been a long time you’ve been this eye-awake at such late hours.   
  
The ash that falls down from outside is almost idle in it’s persistence to bleak out the sky.   
  
You don’t close your eyes, and you probe for some semblance of any thoughts in the room.   
  
Blink, don’t.   
  
A coffee table over, Mortum brushes a finger against old spines of books, lips pursed in pursuit.  In his other hand, the gun looks brazen and garish. Not against the room, because the room has enough oddities to make a black pistol look commonplace and stuffed against the crowded stacks, but against Mortum.   
  
He looks as if he’s to hold a book, or a pair of glasses, or maybe a beaker, if you’re being stereotypical. Not a gun. Guns aren’t built for such long, tapered fingers.   
  
But then again, it doesn’t matter what kind of hands you have as long as they’re steady.   
  
Mortum hums, and it matches the rumble of the radiator. His eyes gleam, and he pulls out a cracked leather book whose spine threatens to splinter.   
  
It’s not too far away as to not read it, so you see the gilded title of it, as cracked as the cover.  _Frankenstein, Shelley._  
  
“It was my mother’s,” He says. “Her fascination with science fiction inspired me a bit, I suppose. There is nothing like the dust of endless American plains to instill mind-numbing boredom, and reading about the questions of why and should was a way to distill it for the both of us.”  
  
He flips open the book carefully, to a certain page, and picks something out from between the pages. Then, he slams the book shut and returns it place, the something small against his fist.   
  
It might be a flash drive. You can’t tell. The dampeners inside of Mortum’s skull prevents you from finding out.  
  
He turns his his head from a profile to stare at you, eyes unreadable as volcanic activity. The cardigan he wears does nothing to distill the sharpness of his gaze, and being looked by him makes you feel as if you’re being dissected. Over and over, again and again.   
  
Then, he smiles. It’s a nice smile. You would never trust it, and he would be disappointed if you did.  
  
“I believe it’s called the Farm, the laboratories of GeniTech, yes?” He asks, loose and knowing.   
  
Tonight isn’t a night of hiding; tonight is a night of filth and secrets that weren’t supposed to belong to you do anyway.   
  
The ash of the outside coats the otherwise pristine windows.  
  
Your hands on your lap are positioned in such a way that the cuffs he put on you shimmer against the low settings of the lights. ( _“For collateral, love.”)_  
“That’s what we called it.” You say, your voice smooth and liquid.   
  
Tonight’s a soggy, ashen night, and you’ve lost enough to start bringing everything else down. The blood’s still crusting up in your hair. You have no idea how he doesn’t look away from you and flinch. Doctorate, maybe.   
  
He moves from the bookcase to the desk, where on top mountains of papers lies an old, already open laptop, and he shoves the supposed flash drive into a port. The laptop glow makes him look blue, the shadows of his face clashing against the orange lights of the room that highlight his round edges.  
  
 If you cross your eyes, you can see him. Dressed in farmer gear, holding up a syringe with that nice smile and pressing against the bruises on your elbow. He’d look ghastly underneath the fluorescence of that place, but in a good way. For collateral, love. He’d look at the bar-code of your chest and know what it means. For collateral, darling. You think he’d be your favorite one. You think maybe you would have left him alive if he worked there.   
  
But you keep the uncrossed, and you see Mortum in the most keenest sense. This is his real apartment, this is his real room, this is his real laptop and his mother’s real copy of  _Frankenstein._  
  
This is his real couch you’re bleeding over, cuffed by the wrist and bare-footed.  Those are his real bandages on your shoulder, real ice against your ankle.   
  
“When I dabbled in the military, I remember something about them keeping track of that place.” Mortum says, not looking up from the laptop. “Not because they were worried it was doing very bad things, but rather jealousy. Fascinating things they brought up, yes. Genetic mutations of children, making the Enhanced turn out to be weapons, wether you can take an embryo and remove it from it’s possibility to become human.”  
  
“There aren’t any kids involved,” You supply.   
  
“Yes, well. My drive can make sure.”You cough, and it hacks into your torso. Maybe the medication didn’t work.   
  
“Where did you find that thing?” You ask, because information that isn’t yours is harder to find that it is to find freshwater in the oceans.   
  
“I stole it, love.” Mortum says, amusement lacing the words. The southern drawl dances with the words. He doesn’t pretend he’s something else when he’s with you. Here, in this room, he is acting exactly as he is; the knife under your pillow, that virus in your computer that buys out your information, the teeter-totter of  _just because we can, should we?_  
  
But then again, he never lies, not really. He just omits.   
  
So to be fair to him, you don’t pretend like he was crazy for cuffing you.   
  
“I’m not going to ask.” Your head rings with the adrenaline peeling out of your hold, leaving the pain you know doesn’t really exist.   
  
The man hums, typing furiously, back bent over slightly to view the laptop better. “Good,” He says, “I wouldn’t have answered you.”   
  
“I’m not sorry for this.”  You say, because there is nothing much to say.   
  
He doesn’t reply.  
  
The minutes tick by, and your head grows lighter, your ankle more burning, the bandage on your shoulder pink.   
  
Then his brows furrow, and he puffs out a  _ha_ , before looking up at you, with the slowness of the Yosemite. His smile grows with the invisibility of silent hands stretching it to the ears, and that’s the look of a man who knows the best way to kill you.   
  
“Well,” He whispers, “Aren’t you a case.”   
  
You stare back at him, and wait to see if you can grin against the noose he just tied.   
  
He is the aluminum found in the mold of your bread, you think. He is if the periodic table was combustible in and of itself. He is that silent code of zeroes and ones that ruin a man faster than a gun.   
  
Mortum picks up the gun from next to the laptop, and fiddles with the safety button, clicking it on and off until he settles for the off.   
  
“I can see why Charge nearly killed you,” He says, stretching up, ugly gun in pretty hand, “How you have changed. My my. The file on you here makes you unrecognizable.”   
  
He is if the atoms of the universe were viscous in their detachment, you think. And doesn’t he know it?   
  
He walks over to you, and gently, gently, he lowers himself down to your height on the couch, then cradles your cheek with his other hand, gun still loaded and off-safety. The touch burns against the chill of the night.   
  
11:58pm.  
  
“I think that part is because I didn’t want to recognized.” You whisper, because he’s close enough to hear.  
  
“And so you made yourself into a bomb instead of a plague?” He asks, eyes soft and unreadable and as tectonic as the end of the world.   
  
“They never taught me how to do things that weren’t for breaking.”   
  
“And so you broke yourself.”   
  
You nod, and his smile falters. Then, he sighs, and leans in to kiss your bruised, split and bloody mouth. It’s not a rough kiss, not with the care and the hesitance of his movements.   
  
When he breaks it off, you don’t realize you closed your eyes, but when then cool head of the gun kisses you in his stead, you keep them closed.   
  
 _12:00am._  
  
“ _Je souhaite que cela aurait pu aller différemment._ ” You say.  
  
“ _Au revoir,_  my love.” He says.  
  



	22. part 3 of industrialized violence

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Misaimed blame" for Jie-Sun/Steel? Or any characters of your choice!

Loving  Jie-Sun is inhaling chloroform. One second you’re awake, and then the next you’re so dazed with it all that your nostrils flare and your head hits the sidewalk.   
  
Wei dreams in austenite, and whatever skin is left on Wei’s body turns into rust under Jie-Sun’s exploring thumbs. A sorry excuse for the nano-vores, but Jie-Sun can make him shudder nonetheless. He kisses the palm of that synthetic hand, and Wei’s blood screams for a tetnis shot.   
  
The way Jie-Sun holds a gun is the same way he holds himself, so it would be close enough to reality to say that Jie-Sun treats a gun like he treats his sense of sight. The scope of the rifle is a third eye for him, and that silencer is Jie-Sun’s second form of speaking. He holds himself like there’s no vaccine to a stabbing, and when he’s stitching up a wound, he bites off the string. His eyes are brown enough for someone to think they’re red, and they’re always filmed with the unshed and unspoken things too big for hand gestures. Angry crier; Jie-Sun never screams. 

It makes everything difficult. A thief needs steady hands and a gentle step, and Jie-Sun is anything but. Wei thinks in austenite.   
  
“Why the name?” He asks one night, with only one of his legs on, with Jie-Sun’s legs draping off the too-small-for-both-of-them couch, with the other man’s head on his lap.  
  
Wei’s dreams will be filled with rifle-fluid in the same flavor as Jie-Sun, and it will be welcome.   
  
“I like stories.” He hums, head tilted to watch the TV they’re supposed to be watching. His eyes are almost glassy with those thousands of  _coulda woulda shoulda_ zipping around that unreadable mind, (hah,) and it’s a sheathed knife.   
  
Wei isn’t much for memorizing stories. Too busy, you see. He used to love them. It’s a wonder what happened.   
  
“Okay,” Wei says. “What kind of story has to do with the name No One? It’s a weird name for a thief.”   
  
Jie-Sun snorts, hands twitching in an instinct to sign out the response, but they stay tangled with Wei’s, and looks up to Wei; glass scope eyes. “Odysseus and the Cyclops,” He says. The words are hoarse and crude. He doesn’t use words much. Despite how much he hates rules, there’s always an invisible line of code he follows that Wei doesn’t understand, and part of that code is ‘ _don’t talk if you can help it.’_ “Instead of his real name, Odysseus used the name Nobody, and then when he fucking slammed that stick into that bitch Cyclops eye, no one believed the Cyclops when it said it was fuckin’ dying.”   
  
“I’ve heard that one before.”  
  
“I sure hope so, otherwise the purpose woulda be wasted for shit.”  
  
“I’m not sure if I’m a fan of it.”   
  
Jie-Sun sighs. There was never amusement in the way he gave his explanation. What he did instead was drag out how ugly cleverness can get, how vulgar having a mind that runs three different ways can get.   
  
A man has his sailors eaten, so the man pretends to be someone he isn’t, stabs the eye, and brags about the death later on, while the monster’s blinded and blubbering to his friends over something that apparently didn’t happen.   
  
Jie-Sun was never particularly clever. He was  _intelligent_ , yes, but never clever. Thinks with his fists and the callouses on his jawbone that cradles a cyanide pill just right.   
  
Wei wonders if it’s still there, that pill. Wonders if it’s still edging the line of Jie-Sun’s knocked out molars, his chipped canines. Wonders if the plastic edging will ever get caught against the mods on his tongue.   
  
He’ll dream of Jie-Sun kissing him into disrepair, and he’ll think about turning into nothing but wires and scrap metal, and he’ll dream of Jie-Sun standing in the rubble, spitting out his teeth and his blood and that cracked jawline and that pill.   
  
“Don’t steal that money,  _bulgasari_.” Wei whispers. “It’s not enough.”  
  
Jie-Sun’s hands tighten, and his mouth clenches. He flicks his gaze away back to the TV.   
  
“I have to.” He says, dull.   
  
“No, you don’t.”   
  
“It’s either this,” He says, “Or Ortega.”  
  
Silence. Wei hates how his heart thumps the same exact pace as it will ever, thanks to his mods.   
  
The three of them. They love each other, and Jie-Sun tilts back and forth from wanting to press his hips against Ricardo, or press a knife into his back. Chen wants Ricardo to stay still long enough so he can hold him together, or hold him down. Ricardo lost any and all ability to think in that electrical storm, but they both know that the man would be willing for either way the gavel falls.   
  
He’s still being held up in work, but he’ll come in twenty minutes or so. The grenades stay docile, so long as Jie-Sun can find a way to make whatever he’s running from hurt.   
  
It means money. More money than Wei can wrap his head around. More money that can pay off his and Ricardo’s life sentences. More money than Jie-Sun will ever be able to steal.   
  
It’s either the money, or it’s the hatred still lacing Jie-Sun’s movements becoming blisters big enough to blind and infect. Park blames Ortega, Ortega blames Chen, Chen blames Park, and nothing about any of this is right.   
  
So loving Jie-Sun is like gagging yourself with chloroform, because one minute Wei thinks he’s right and he’s doing good and he’s helping people and everything is black and white again, and then Jie-Sun bites into the lollipop he never seems to stop sucking and Wei is twenty-one again, who thinks spray-painting vulgarities on a cop car is funny and justified. White, and then everything turns to rust.   
  
Wei sighs, and uses his free hand to tilt Jie-Sun’s head back to look at him.   
  
Dead eyes, dead gaze, but he kisses it nonetheless. 


	23. ghostbusters cant help you with this one, fucker

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> taking you with me: anyone with sidestep, with the farm

it was hard, getting up, and his head couldn’t stop spinning. whirlwind washing machine, something that twirls, pirouette, maybe, no, the twisters found in the dust bowl, yes. 

if only he had enough control of himself to keep from wobbling when anathema touches his arm. her hand’s cold and misty. he knows that it’s the best he’s gonna get.

(choice: i wish ortega was here.)

“hi.” she whispers, and lets go of his elbow. “you should stay still.” 

how bad is it? 

“pretty bad,” she answers. “you’re bleeding so badly it’s leaking out of your skinsuit.” 

thought this fabric was watertight. damn, his feet keep turning into wheels, can’t keep em still. 

“that’s because they’re broken,” she says. her hair’s loose from her braids. there’s no freckles, not much. she stands next to him. “please lie down.” 

no, need to do something. there’s a clicking up in the horizon, pretty sure someone’s hurting badly, pretty sure something’s wrong, and pretty sure that the head is spinning, oh spinning. head hurts. back’s killing. think he bit his tongue. 

(choice: you’ll regret this you’ll all be sorry)

“sidestep,” anathema says, and she touches him again, and he sinks back again. “come on. they’ll come in twenty minutes. it’s not going to be good.”

who? can’t think. something’s itchy.

“farmers.” she says.

those farmers that put needles up his nose, he bets. those that buzzed his hair, (HIS MOUTH HIS VOICE HIS MOUTH) those that picked apart his tear ducts, his blushes, his dead skin, his dandruff, he bets. 

they’ll love this. take the suit from his wounds and put it in a plastic bag. shove it under a microscope, till it grows rancid. rats samples. maybe he’ll get an infection. they haven’t tried that yet. they’ll try it. oh, oh. 

anathema. what’s she doing here?

and he remembers, she’s dead. 

“i am,” she says. “but i’m here.”

thought she died because of him.

“i did,” she says. “but it’s not your fault.” 

stop reading his mind.

“i can’t.” she says. so sad, so lonely, so bad. “i’m sorry.”

(choice: you look away from the sight of her)

he doesn’t want her here. she’s not supposed to know. no one is supposed to know. 

“please lay down.” she whispers. anathema was never so quiet. “just please lay down.”


	24. this was too short for the SMS thing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> so…. for prompts…. ‘bloodstained clothes’ and sidestep getting injured during their hero days… unable to ask for help for fear of exposing their skin… having to deal with all their wounds alone… nobody to take care of them like they do ortega… (if you want to use jie-sun absolutely feel free! or if not any/generic sidestep works too!)

it’s probably saying something that he’s grown used to his skin stained. you know how flamingos turn pink when they eat enough shrimp? this is him, right now, gone red from eating up the adrenaline caused by bricks being thrown at his head and guns being shot against his vest.

it’s a pretty color, he thinks flippantly. looks weird and clean. he doesn’t mind it pumping through the insides of him, but something tells him he should mind it when it’s pulsing out through his clenched hands and suit.

it’s not stopping. strange. there’s a story about this, somewhere, sometime, probably.

(aswang. draugr. bruxsa. pishacha. come on, think, think.)

he blinks, wondering when ricardo will jump down and slap his hands on jie-sun’s shoulders and shake him into reality, but there’s nothing but a sky, brown as it is midnight.

the villains gone, maybe. maybe? yes. possible.

(dhampir? no. this is a vetalas, getting what it’s due.)

(he’s a cemetary, sure is)

his legs are solid, so he sits quietly down, clutching the bloody hands and wondering where the hell he can get some gauze some antiseptic, some this and that and whatever the hell chen managed to hide in those giant fucking hands, whatever the fuck anathema had packed for emergencies, dog bless, dogspeed her and where is she.

it’s a quiet day. damnit.  _damn_  it.

(it ain’t visiting hours in the graveyard)

it would have been stupid, anyway. showing off skin would be like chen showing off his dog tag, and that’s the biggest sign of a no-no known to anyone. hey, see these tattoos? no? help me with the blood, wipe it off with something bandaged, and then you will. then you will.

there’s another story for that, maybe.

the suit he’s wearing gets a pound heavier. still not stopping. gluttony is a cardinal sin, fuck.

shouldn’t have swallowed so much near-death experiences and now he’s in a dingy alleyway bleeding out on some dusty pavement which still has traces of whatever the villain was selling on the floor and he can’t call anyone because that’s number one rule of wearing a dog tag: don’t show it off how’s he gonna get out of this one because he can’t even yell for help because he’s so fucking  _quiet_  right now and his muzzle won’t crack open maybe instead of lollipops he should start eating jawbreakers yeah that might work break open the jaw and let him cry for help

(shita kiri suzume you’ll only get the attention of the wife after you’ve eaten all the starch)


	25. the power of men loving men shines within you

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> But may I humbly suggest steelchargestep as the ultimate ot3 ❤️

The back of his lips, the exploration of something so familiar and green. Wei tastes of mint toothpaste, slightly. Ortega kisses him slow and rocking, because that’s what Wei likes. Slow and tilting, just enough of a touch to rival a butterfly kiss. Ricardo traces a hand gently down from Wei’s jaw to his arm, down to clutch Wei’s prosthetic hand with his own rough, real one.   
  
Wei is incredibly soft, scabbed face and solid muscles despite. Perhaps it’s the dusk creeping through the windows rose-coloring him, perhaps it’s the fact Wei’s smiling his own kiss openly, which makes it harder for Ricardo to swallow his entire mouth  _properly, no Wei you jerk, it’s not a real kiss if there’s no tongue, c’mon, sit still already, let me treat you right._  
  
“Awfully persistent, aren’t you,” Wei rasps, leaning down his head on the bed-frame. His hair sticks a bit up, because Ricardo got enthusiastic and zapped him, nothing is set in stone. His eyes shine, his grin makes him ten years younger. There’s no steel concerning Wei Chen, and Ortega intends to keep it that way. When the first ice breaks, you let it melt into spring.   
  
The way Wei holds Ricardo’s waist with one arm excites Ortega more than he presents.  
  
“Uh huh,” Ricardo says, and kisses the tip of Wei’s nose, right under the scar he got five years ago. “Wouldn’t be me without it.”   
  
A soft wheezing is heard from behind the both of them, and Ricardo tears away to look at the doorframe, see’s a blush-lighted version of a hunched Jie-Sun, smiling so much that his face shows dimples. The bags under his eyes seem smaller, and his eyes are almost light again.   
  
It’s almost too-dark to see Jie-Sun’s sign language, and his cane is stuffed underneath his arm, but he’s unbuttoned the top button of his shirt, the sleeves shoved and wrinkled to show off fore-arms more scar than skin.   
  
Ricardo grins, leans down to rest more of his weight on steel, twiddles his curls with a finger. Wei puffs out in disproval at being treated as a mattress, but it’s a losing battle.   
  
Jie-Sun taps twice on his jaw. It’s one of his quiet days.   
  
“Well, looked who finally decided to arrive,” Ricardo purrs, liquid and smooth and magazine cover photo. “You wanna join in?”   
  
“Get his heavy ass off of me,” Wei wheezes, and Ricardo places his finger on Wei’s mouth to shush him.   
  
The huffs of laughter grow, and Jie-Sun shakes his head. Ricardo is about to pout, turn on the water-works all for the sake of biting into slightly-salty skin, all for the sake of  _love_ , you know, love is definitely an equation,  _mi amor, lover, c’mon, let me treat you right, babe!_ so on and so forth, until he takes his can and thumps the ground with it.  
  
Wei watches passively as Jie-Sun walks over to the bed, tilts his head, expression radiant and thoughtful. He’s had a good day, if he’s this limb-loosed.   
  
Wei watches passively and Jie-Sun leans his weight on one leg, and brings the tip of his cane to the underside of Ricardo’s chin, and tilts his head up.   
  
Wei is not as passive everywhere else as he is with his face. 


	26. tega: why the fuck u clinking ur spoons SO LOUD

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> hey. hey. alien. sensory overload and/or painful wound cleaning for chargestep or chargesteel

He doesn’t want to be here, not while the lightbulbs are screaming loud and gore-ish, not while the the light’s sucking hickeys on his shoulders, not while statics balming up his mouth like lipgloss, not while the timer’s clicking loud enough to cause an earthquake, not while he’s close to short-circuiting the rope that keeps fucking  _touching_   _him._  
  
His shirts itchy and his mods are too-hot, his hair is biting the back of his neck with enough sting that his head may as well be inside a wasp’s nest, his wrists bloody and raw from the straw of the rope steadily sawing against them everytime he tries playing houdini, the chair’s splintering where he’s sitting and the clock’s ticking too loud, too much, and he needs it gone he needs everything gone it’s too bright and buzzing why the  _fuck_  do they make lights so loud, whose grand idea was it to make it hurt to see, whose brilliant idea was it to leave him here riled-up and on edge tied down, why the hell did they have to tie him down, why the hell did they have to make him sit still, why the hell why the hell why the hell i _t’s so fucking loud-  
_  
The crash  and topple of the hallways feet don’t make it any better, the slamming of the door don’t make him feel any nicer, and by the time someone tries to touch his shoulder he makes sure that they get a burn mark.   
  
“I’m sorry, Charge,” Steel mutters under his breath, and Ortega nearly yells at him to shut up, “But there’s no one else who knows how much you hate getting tied down like this.”   
  
shut up shut up shut up shut up shut up and “ _Get these off of me already.”_ He snaps, making the words out to be just as snake-hissed as the lights sound, so people know how much it sucks to hear them, someone please just turn them off, god  _damnit,_  why are there so many people, can they all just shut up,   
  
“Easy, easy,” Chen whispers, barely heard, and Ortega slams his eyes shut to keep his retinas from burning. He doesn’t see how silently Chen picks up his red ripped wrists, but he feels the relief when the rope is cut off, nearly thanks a God he doesn’t believe in anymore with the release from the pressure.   
  
“Ankles.” Ortega manages to sputter without biting Chen’s hand off. Doesn’t matter that they’re made of metal.   
  
“Shhhh,” He replies, and the ropes on his ankles are cut off too. He nearly explodes into a flurry of kinetic movement, trying to shake off all of the extra bolts that he was forced to lock in.   
  
He jumps up, stumbles over, rubs his eyes with the heels of his palms he nearly starts tearing up.   
  
Chen says: “Anything else?”   
  
Ricardo says: “Lights.” and then says: “ _Fuck.”_  
  
Chen says: “I warned you.”


	27. benafflecksmoking.png. YOURE DEAD??? AGAIN????

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Holding their partners unconcious body for steel and sidestep ❤️ please Also I love your writing ❤️💕❤️

The last thing you think when you tumble and you feel the cold air seeping in through the wound on your head is something so stupid that you won’t remember it when you wake.   
  
At least, if you even wake.   
  
To not remember ones last thoughts. That’s a sort of punishment, isn’t it?  
  
The dirt accumulates on your face, and your limbs feel too leaded and pulped into a sorry loss of movement and nuclear kinetic energy wastes that even breathing feels as if that’s also something punishing you.   
  
Your body making you regret living. How many times have you hated this cycle, over and over, constant repetition of heartbeats that not even you want to save.  
  
It’s a relief when you sleep. It’ll be even more of a relief when you finally realize you might as well not wake up.   
  
Let your thoughts slip out from the strands of your hair and trickle from your nose in the same way the brain-matter and blood does.   
  
You don’t hear him come up to you, knuckled-down twice with one eye closed from the of scars on his forehead reopening and re-weeping. His hands are nothing but scrap metal, but still, he’s here.   
  
He looks down at how you lie on the ground, one arm out-stretched; still crawling from whatever you need to survive from.   
  
“Oh,” He says. “No.”  
  
You don’t hear him.   
  
It’s almost merciful, how soft he peels your frame off the ground. A soft huff of exertion comes out from his thinned mouth when he tucks your head away from anything that could finish what you want it to finish.   
  
If you were awake, the scrabble of what his hands are left would have burned you from the residual heat.  
  
“Can’t keep yourself alive, can you.” He murmurs. It would have sounded aching if he still remembered how to yield. “Not even when I asked.”   
  
You don’t answer him.   
  
He doesn’t expect you to. Answering questions would have been more of a lie than whatever else you have pressed into his mouth.   
  
If you were awake, the way he holds you to him would have been almost like a cradle, even if it isn’t behind closed doors.   
  
“Fine then.” Wei says, and carries you home. “I’ll pretend like this was an accident.”


	28. i got a gun. no girls. girls gotta. die.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Julia refusing to harm an unmasked Nana and getting seriously injured as a result :^)

“I don’t want to fight you.” Julia says. 

The silence of the fight still wraps around her lead-heavy limbs. The mods in her spine feel like they’re sinking into her spine. Its almost dusty, how quiet everything is. Not even the wailing of the sirens crack through silence.   
  
She’s standing tall, because she’s winning.   
  
Nana, on the other hand, clutches a hand to the back of her head, and crawls up to sit on the ground, back slumped against a broken brick wall. The way she heaves sounds dying, like someone thrown at sea and bobbing up and down for air.   
  
She tilts her chin down, and ends up slumping her head to her chest, but her eyes break contact with Julia’s. The grin on her face looks sloppy, strange. Someone pressing thumbs and forcing the ends of her mouth up into a smile.   
  
“Alright,” Nana manages to choke out. Her blistering-eyes are clear, her expression the color of leprosy. Cat tearing off skin with her claws. “Then beg.”  
  
“What?”  
  
Julia still has energy to keep going for an hour or two. Her fingers are stiff, yes, and her neck is aching from holding a banged-up head, yes, and there’s so many bruises on her body she might as well have purple skin instead of brown, yes, but. But but but.   
  
She stiffens even further, frowns. “I don’t beg.” She says.  
  
Nana hacks, and Julia thinks it was supposed to be a laugh, if it wasn’t for the blood. “Then I get back up, and we dally dilly rosie-posie around the ring, yeah?And then I turn to a poor sack of skin.”  
  
  
Julia stares at her. Nana’s already let go of her thigh and head, struggles to reach over to her helmet. The sky is as muddy brown as the clotted blood on both of their suits.  It’s hard to breathe, not with the stench of burnt rubber and the broken nose.   
  
Nana fails at trying to get the helmet, arm twisted too much to be useful, and the woman gasps, then snorts.   
  
Julia walks up to her, and Nana stops hissing at the arm to look where Julia kneels in front of her. Their faces are so close. Nana’s lashes are clumped with sweat, and her skin has an unhealthy sheen.   
  
Her smile is unreadable when Julia presses a calloused hand on Nana’s cheek, and Julia gets nothing when she leans into the hand, nearly purring.   
  
“Second Plague, Sidestep, Nana, whichever the hell you are,” Julia whispers. Her voice cracks with how much she doesn’t want to be here, not like this. 

Nana looks mildly curious.   
  
 “Please,  _please_  don’t make me fight you.” The words nearly ache.  
  
The curiosity turns to pleasure, and Nana changes from an unhealthy shine to a glow.   
  
“Charge,” Nana purrs, and tucks a stray curl on Julia’s face behind her ear as she does so, “Ain’t you just the sweetest? On your knees and everything, how cutsie and neat.”   
  
The hand traces down to the place where Julia’s neck meets her shoulder.  
  
Julia doesn’t close her eyes.   
  
Nana doesn’t look away.   
  
“Shame!” Nana winks, and the barrel of a gun buries itself on Julia’s chest, and a bullet buries itself even deeper, right through her lungs.


	29. argent and nana have fun planning really weird fight scenes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> no good deed goes unpunished nana or facing their phobia jie or make an example of them ximena?

bones sound different compared to car-fires, and car-fires sound different compared to busted pipes, and busted pipes sound different compared to the whirring of the suit.

second plauge’s suit looks like it was made with the thought of asphyxiation in mind. 

the clear metal of her neck starts to singe second plauge’s neck, but not quick enough. lady argent dips her claws into the gasoline fire next to second plauge’s head, and ignores the sear of it to watch as her hands blush white from the heat. 

second plauge’s mask is off, crushed to bits and nothing is left but the crumbs of dried lavender that was shoved down said mask. it looks like confetti, how it dusts nana’s face.

argent’s hands feel like they’re peeling into ash, so she carefully extracts them from the fire and wraps them against nana’s neck, watching as the metal starts to turn pliable. 

the girl under her chokes out a ragged gasp, eyes blown wide and dilated, the stitches on her head bleeding like dirty gauze. she’s got soot on her cheek, looks like ink. 

the crowd’s multiplying. nana’s making everyone stay back, drilling screwdrivers into their ears and making sure that whatever this is, whatever argent’s doing right now, is just accomplished by the two of them. it takes two to start an accident, takes two for a deliberate action such as making it hurt. 

argent’s hands sizzle, and the metal starts biting nana’s neck. a weird expression is on her face, and argent’s hair is in her eyes, and she’s chewed through her entire bottom lip, and yeah, she knows this is all for looking good, but she hates how good either of them look right now, when nana’s neck turns into mercury. 

nana looks straight at ximena and then there’s a thought. you’re not really convincing when you’re desperate, sugar plum.

“god, can’t you shut up?” she answers, and the gasp thats wet from lack of oxygen sounds like an almost laugh. 

she almost smiles. there’s so many people screaming. argent’s hands seem to melting into the suit, as well.


End file.
